Doors
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Reading is Fundamental tag: Fixing a door gives the brothers a little time to process and talk before the main event.


**Doors**  
K Hanna Korossy

"So," Dean said into the enormous silence. "A demon, an angel, and a prophet walk into a cabin..."

"You forgot the fallen angel and the dead angel." Sam didn't look up from the notes he was paging through.

"No, I didn't," Dean said ruefully, glancing around the room. The burnt outline of Hester's wings stretched across the cabin. Drops of Cas's blood showed where Hester had whaled on him until Meg had stabbed her. And then there was the door, or rather, what was left of the door. "Just trying to think of a punchline."

Sam finally looked up from Kevin's notebook, belatedly taking in the damage. "Oh yeah."

"Oh yeah," Dean echoed. Good thing Rufus wasn't around anymore to care about his cabin getting trashed.

Sam suddenly grinned at him in the middle of the mess, literally and figuratively, they were in right now. "'We're gonna need a bigger door'?"

Dean groaned.

00000

"You know it's the middle of the night, right?"

Dean dodged another rut in the road. It was awesome how hidden Rufus' cabin was—even the Leviathan hadn't found it—but what wasn't awesome was the unpaved road that wound from it through the woods. "Huh, I was wondering where the sun was." He rolled his eyes. "What's your point, Sam?"

"I don't think Home Depot's open 24 hours, man."

"Who said anything about them being open?" Dean tossed Sam a grin. "We're about to save the world from being eaten, dude—I think they owe us a couple pieces of lumber."

"'Lumber,' huh?" Sam huffed a laugh. "I forget sometimes you worked construction."

Dean's grin faded a little, remembering that year, why he'd had a normal job. Beat going nuts thinking about Sam suffering in Hell. "Better skill than that law clerking you did a couple o' times." Before it had sunk in to Sam that he was never going to be a lawyer.

Sam didn't even flinch. Considering they'd both died since then, lost just about everyone they cared about, and saved the world repeatedly, Sam's college aspirations were literally ancient history. "Yeah, whatever," he muttered good-naturedly. "So, you think if Kevin's a prophet, that means Chuck's dead?"

Dean shrugged. "That's the way it works, right?" He grimaced. "I kinda liked the little dude. Even if he wrote all that crap." Those books would dog them until they died, and probably even after.

"I wonder when it happened," Sam mused. "Probably sometime this year, right? Raphael would've protected him if he was still alive."

"I don't think Raffi cared a lot about what he was supposed to do that last year." Dean didn't manage to avoid a pothole that rattled his teeth and had Sam clutching at the dash. For once he was almost glad Baby was in mothballs. "Crap. We're gonna boost a pick-up when we come back out here."

"Gonna need it for the lumber, anyway." Sam was rubbing his head; there were some drawbacks to being so freakishly tall you just about brushed every ceiling.

Dean eyed him. "You coulda stayed at home, man. We both know you're dyin' to hit the books."

Sam made a face. "Dean, we're on _everybody's_ radar right now. We're not splitting up now until it's time to get Dick." Off Dean's look, he gave an exasperated sigh. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah," he said, breathing out as they finally hit the highway and he relaxed. "I do."

00000

"Hand me the plane, dude."

Sam gave him a blank look. "The...? Oh! Right." He handed over the tool.

Dean resisted the urge to shake his head: the kid was brilliant, but sometimes he was clueless. "You know, it kinda feels good that it's not our mess we're cleaning up this time."

Sam's brow furrowed as he looked around the trashed cabin.

"No, I mean..." Dean waved the plane a second before he put it back to work on the rough wood. "The Levis, Cas, all of it. Maybe the world's playing Russian roulette again, but for once, we didn't load the gun."

Sam adjusted his grip so his hand wouldn't be shaved along with the wood. "You know, Dean, you've got a weird way of looking at the bright side."

"Just sayin'." Dean hefted the plank, looked down its length, then, satisfied, laid it over the broken door. It fit perfectly. He'd forgotten how nice that feeling was, too. He put his hand up without looking, smiling to himself when Sam immediately slapped the hammer into it. What was even nicer: having his brother there, sane and healthy and working with him.

As if Sam read his mind, because that's how much he was back, the kid spoke up hesitantly. "I, uh, talked to Cas before?"

Dean barely paused before driving the first nail in. "Yeah? 'Bout what?" As if he didn't know, but he would let Sam say this how he needed to.

"The whole craziness thing. I think I get it now—he didn't take on the memories, or even the damage."

Dean glanced at him over a shoulder. "So...?" he asked carefully.

"So I think what he took away was all the emotion. The years of fear and pain and-and hopelessness." Sam was idly sorting nails, handing them to Dean as needed.

Dean closed his eyes, just for a second. The thought of Sam going through that still made him want to pound something into a bloody smear, but Cas going through it instead wasn't a happy place, either.

"All the crap that was doing the damage, you know? I can still remember what the Cage was like, but it's like...I'm watching it instead of feeling it."

Dean had to clear his throat before he could speak. "Huh." The next nail went in with just two blows.

"Anyway. I finally had a chance to thank him for what he did. The wall wasn't gonna hold forever, you know? This way I can live with it."

Dean sat back on his haunches, head bowed as he thought about that a moment. Bobby was dead because of the Leviathan Cas had freed. Sam had almost died in the loony bin. The world was staring into the open mouth of a very hungry predator and didn't even know it. And Cas was kinda nuts. There was understanding and compassion, and then there was forgiveness.

"Dean?" Sam asked uncertainly behind him.

"Yeah." Dean took a breath and nodded. "I think it's done."

They levered up the heavy door in silence, then lift it onto the new hinges. Sam held it in place while Dean screwed it in.

When he was done, Dean gave the door a push. It swung easily.

"Nice work," Sam said admiringly.

Dean almost laughed: a door was easy. Sam's head, Leviathan, a vengeful Bobby ghost and a cuckoo Cas: those were the real challenges. But he would take a win wherever he could get it. "Hey, it's me," he said smugly, because Sam would expect it. "And now you can slam the door when you're throwing a tantrum, princess."

"Jerk," Sam said fondly.

Dean shut the door on the world the Winchesters would soon go to war for one more time. "Let's get to work, bitch."

 **The End**

 _For anyone interested, I have a page on Ao3 now (under K_Hanna_Korossy) onto which I am slowly uploading all my non-SPN fic, starting with Starsky & Hutch. It's old stuff, and I wouldn't mind if no one's interested in it, but just FYI. -KHK_


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